ABSTRACT
Symbolism underlies much of human life, as the immense literature on its history, theory and application shows. This chapter modestly introduces several key concepts of common interest to theologians and anthropologists, stressing the relationship between symbolism and embodiment. It draws on Victor Turner and Dan Sperber’s symbolic studies to expand the theme of human embodiment and to offer two brief analyses of major Christian sacraments. The chapter sketches Karl Rahner’s Catholic and Paul Tillich’s Protestant theological interest in symbolism, before exploring, in the third part, a series of topics closely linked to issues of symbolism and that directly inter-relate theological and anthropological concerns over the nature of human religiosity, not least in relation to time. It deals with a more technical issue on symbolism as an innate aspect of human competence. Different Christian traditions practise baptism in different forms, sometimes of infants and sometimes only of adults.
